Changing Head and Neck Oncologic Surgery Practice Patterns During Early COVID-19

A 46.7% decrease in outpatient visits and a 46.8% decrease in surgical caseload were observed at a major cancer center during the early COVID-19 pandemic compared to 2019. Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report data on outpatient visits, multidisciplinary conferences, surgical caseload, and therapy modifications. The dataset likely contains metrics for analyzing the pandemic's impact on head and neck cancer care delivery.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between pandemic constraints and surgical volume based on reported caseload decreases.
• Analyzing shifts in patient access to care based on reported outpatient visit metrics.
• Studying changes in multidisciplinary treatment planning based on conference data mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Provides specific, quantified pandemic impacts: 46.7% decrease in outpatient visits and 46.8% decrease in surgical caseload.
• Originates from a single, high-volume tertiary cancer care center, suggesting consistent data collection standards.
• Includes a comparative temporal analysis by benchmarking against data from the previous year.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and institutional bias inherent to a single-center study.

Provenance

Source

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Head and Neck Surgery.

Collection Method

Reported data from departmental records on outpatient visits, multidisciplinary conferences, surgical caseload, and therapy modifications.

Time Range

Early COVID-19 pandemic period, compared to 2019.

Geography

Houston, Texas, United States.